The Girlfriend Subterfuge
by romanitas
Summary: "I'm a government worker and I had to seduce you for a case but I'm starting to like you legitimately AU." Or: Annabeth has been sent to investigate Jupiter Industries. She becomes Percy's girlfriend to do it.
1. Chapter 1

Jason Grace. Son and heir apparent to Jupiter Industries, currently being slammed under tabloids under accusations of extreme corruption and possibily domestic terrorism. Not Jason, just his father – but it doesn't mean he's completely igorant to the goings on. He's a possibility.

Annabeth tiptoes into his bedroom alone for the first time, out of many times over his apartment. She's scoped it out before, gotten to know the layout. It's neat and organized, a room after her own heart, save for the occasional sock or pair of pants. His laptop sits on the desk, closed up, and she stills, listening.

Silence.

Percy's still sleeping. He got back a few hours ago, from a forty-eight hour shift at the station, so he'll be out like a light for a solid amount of time.

Percy, Jason's roommate, his friend from high school, and technically, her boyfriend. Her fingers curl into a fist, but she wouldn't be standing here right now if she hadn't starting talking to him over an emperor penguin at the aquarium. He volunteers, twice a week. That's where she was told to find him.

Annabeth sits down at the desk and carefully opens Jason's laptop. It whirs to life and she types in the password to boot it up – it honestly wasn't that hard to figure out, with how often she's over here and how often he talks about his girlfriend Piper. He's with her now, fortunately.

 _Piper's nice_ , she thinks, pulling a flash drive from her pocket and plugging it in. She clicks away at the keyboard with practiced quiet, ears open carefully as she digs around through files and folders. Spotting a PDF with Jupiter Industries in the title, she drags it into the flash drive, making herself a copy.

They went on a double date once, and she'd be hard-pressed to deny it hadn't been fun doubleteaming the boys over – well, just about everything. It hadn't been difficult to pretend she was having a good time. Because she was.

The laptop pulls up a lot of nothing thus far, but there are a lot of places to keep digging. Even something as simple as an email, from father to son – there's no telling what she might find inside. She figured out his email password already, too, so she pulls it up, skimming over subject lines and other addresses. What she really needs is to get her hands on his phone sometime – she can play the whole 'oops, took your phone by mistake!'

They have the same phone. A move that wasn't an accident at all – as soon as they discovered what type of phone Jason had, Annabeth was issued the exact model. Probably for exactly those reasons.

She spots his father's name, his email – the email's already been opened, and she drags the cursor to click it.

Footsteps. Coming down the hall.

Annabeth signs out of the email, exits, pulls up another tab – some menu to a terrible restaurant Percy mentioned the other day. She yanks out the flash drive and curls it in her palm just as someone stops outside the door.

"Annabeth?" Percy's voice, groggy, followed by a yawn.

She looks over her shoulder, a bright smile on her face. "What are you doing up?"

He makes an incomprehensible noise, then sweeps into the room. "Why are – why are you in Jason's room?"

She recognizes all the signs of Percy Jackson in a stage that's not quite awake but not quite sleeping; he's fairly observant, despite how he appears, so she's not surprised he has the capacity to question why she's in here. She stands up, shoving the flash drive in her pocket in the same movement. "Just wanted to look something up, but I didn't wanna disturb you."

He grins at her goofily. "As if you could ever disturb me."

Her heart jumps. It startles her, though the only sign of it is internal. Her heart doesn't _do_ that. It's not allowed to. Percy holds out his hand, and as the girlfriend, she takes it. As Annabeth Chase, infiltrator of lives, she's struggling. "I hate my shifts sometimes," he sighs, pulling her in and wrapping his arms around her.

She complies. He's warm. It's not the first time he's held her by a longshot, but there's a comfort in there she's never felt before. "You're the one who chose that line of work." And really, she could be talking to herself there.

He snorts, kissing the top of her head. "Just coo and tell me I'm a hero."

 _She_ snorts, and it surprises her how genuine the sound is. "Not happening."

"Worth a shot." He pulls back and steals a kiss. Her heart jumps again, even as she returns it. "I'm going back to bed," he starts, and he sounds a little nervous. "Come with me?"

She shouldn't. She should duck back home, coordinate with Frank. Look over that file while he sleeps – meet up with him later. "Not all of us need to sleep a million hours to catch up after work." Naturally, she remembers passing out for twelve hours straight after a particular rough week in San Diego. Slept through three different alarms.

He can tell she's hesitant, but he doesn't try to make her feel bad about it. He just smiles at her. "Will you at least be here when I wake up?"

"That's a creepy question." The phrases rolling off her tongue today, seriously. As if she hadn't done just that in the past with less innocuous intent. As if she hadn't been the creeper more ways than she can count.

He sputters. It's stupid – how she can say one tiny thing, and he just _reacts_ , so lively and open. He's so moronically earnest. He smiles easily, and she's starting to realize that she does things now and then with every intention of making him smile.

It's not hard. Sometimes all she does is walk in the room and his face lights up like she's a goddess come to life.

Maybe she's done her job a little too well.

Percy sighs dramatically. "Two days of only quick texts and phone calls, and she doesn't even want to stick around when I'm finally home."

She shoves his arm. "Don't be an idiot. I'm staying."

And she does.

And when she's curled up with him, his arms wrapped around her, she finds it far too comfortable a position. She never sleeps easily when she sleeps over, but today is the first time she feels safe. Annabeth looks up at his face, his mouth wide open with the occasional snore breaking the silence, his hair a complete disaster after the long shift and immediate transit into bed –

Get close to Percy Jackson, get into Jason Grace's life. That was all she had to do.

Watching him sleep, there's a smile slipping on her face, and she actually reaches out to brush the hair from his eyes. He's so stupid. He's an idiot who makes too many bad puns, and maybe he's a good cook, but he still has a pillow pet on his bed, his organization is nonexisent and his space a disaster, and he plunders through life far too impulsively. Far too trustingly.

He trusted her without batting an eye.

She could kill him in his sleep. Right now.

Except for the part where she couldn't at all – because something has gone terribly, awfully wrong, and he's grown on her. Like a fungus. She likes the guy.

Maybe a little too much.

This is, most definitely, not part of the job.

* * *

so this is an au that was started on tumblr, probably about a year ago by this point! i'll slowly be archiving what's been written up onto ao3/ffnet now too, as a sort of collection set in this universe c:

it'll jump around a bit - it wasn't originally written with any set structure/set chapter plan, but i just kept writing more parts to it, so here we are!


	2. Chapter 2

His favorite exhibit is the penguins. The dolphins, too, but she already checked there. Annabeth takes a seat on the bench, sunglasses hiding her gaze, hair swept up into a ponytail.

Her outfit is carefully constructed. The blouse is a shade of purple that perfectly matches her eyes, the collar low enough to be flirty but high enough to not reveal anything. Her jeans hug her hips at a flattering angle, and her purse hangs easily over her shoulder.

She spots him, after about five minutes. He's talking animatedly to a couple of kids, pointing and gesturing at the penguins with a smile on his face. His shirt is too wrinkled, he's got a shoelace untied, and his hair is windswept in the worst way.

Annabeth wrinkles her nose. She knows the signs of a messy person, and she hopes upon hope that Percy Jackson is tolerable. After another minute, she stands up and slowly makes her way over to the tank. They're actually pretty cute, swimming around. She takes some time, looking forward at the tank with her head, but her eyes are watching Jackson, waiting for him to finish up his little chat with the kids.

Finally, he waves as they walk away, then peers around at the crowd. Looking for anyone who needs help, most likely.

One second. Two. Three. She pulls the sunglasses to the top of her head and squints at the water, like she's trying to figure something out. Out of the corner of her vision, she spots him sauntering by, and she steps back into his path. She looks at him squarely, holds herself loosely, and gives him a bit of a smile.

"Are there any babies?"

He beams at her. "Not right now. The chicks are usually born in May or June."

"So I come back in two months, baby penguins?"

He scratches his chin. "Nope. The eggs have to incubate – it's the eggs that are born first, technically."

"The males do that part, right? Incubate?"

He looks pleased she knows that already. She knows a lot of things about penguins already, simply because she has a thirst for knowledge and definitely spent the other night reading over articles until three in the morning, just because she knew this interaction was coming. She's supposed to be asking i _him_ /i questions, but it doesn't mean she can't be prepared to steer the conversation.

He starts explaining the process – it's not in the most scientific way, but she supposes that's why he's only a volunteer and not a full time employee. No, his real job is a firefighter – which, honestly, is pretty perfect, provided she actually _gets_ access to his apartment. To Jason Grace's apartment.

"How do you know so much about penguins?"

His grin turns sheepish, maybe a little embarrassed. "School."

Annabeth already knows he didn't finish. That he dropped out his sophomore year, got a job. Eventually that turned into his current employment at the firehouse. "Well, _I_ learned something today," she lies, but it's airy and flirty and her tone is imbibed with honesty.

He looks a little confused, mouth opened just enough to make him look like an idiot. Percy is the type of person she'd probably not spend a second glance looking over. Today her job is to give him several once overs. "I'm Annabeth. Do you work here?" she asks, filling her tone with genuine curiosity.

He shakes his head. "Percy. Just a volunteer."

"Oh, that's too bad. I was going to use that as an excuse to come back."

He blinks. "Uh. Well, Saturdays have cheaper admission?"

Okay, not only does he look like an idiot, he probably is one too. Either that, or not many people have tried to hit on him in the past. His response baffles her enough that she doesn't reply right away, wondering if the effort involved in this is going to be worth getting a better look into Jason Grace's life. "Are you here on Saturdays?"

"Sometimes." There's an upward inflection – it's not quite a question, but close enough. He doesn't get why she's asking, how it relates to admission prices. She'd give up right now, if getting him to agree on a date wasn't the whole purpose of today.

"Are you here _this_ Saturday?"

"No?"

This is the point where she'd walk away in frustration. The fact that she _can't_ is making her even more frustrated, but she just smiles sweetly at him. "Does that mean you're free on Saturday?"

The confused look on his face might be endearing if it wasn't so freaking annoying. "Are you looking to volunteer too…?"

"I'm _looking_ to see if you're free for a coffee sometime, but you're being obtuse." Wrong move. He's going to brush her off now, but there's only so much Annabeth can take. She starts calculating the report in her head, prepared in detail to explain how Percy Jackson sidestepped every single hint about a date just to make herself feel better. It's not her failure.

Instead, he surprises her. He laughs. His cheeks go a little red, and he looks a combination of awkward and flattered. "Oh. Uh. Well - I'm not much of a coffee person."

She's done. She gives up. Someone else can handle this. Annabeth sighs quietly and frowns, waving her hand. "Fine, forget –"

He grabs her hand midair, like he doesn't want her to walk off. And then he turns even redder. "No! No, I mean – I like smoothies?" He pauses. "There's a Jamba Juice a couple blocks away. If, um, that's okay with you."

She blinks at him in her own surprise. Then glances at his hand – when he notices where she's looking, he immediately pulls back and holds up his arms apologetically. Annabeth smiles at him, and maybe some of it is legit, but mostly it's part of the job. "I like the Strawberry Whirl."

Percy grins at her goofily. "I'll remember that."

And when they meet that Saturday, he orders her a Strawberry Whirl without hesitation. They make plans to catch lunch the next day, right before his shift.

Step one, achieved.


End file.
